Magic Science and Religion 3 i 



appear at the right moment, noxious insects remain in abeyance, 

 the harvest yield a superabundant crop ; and another year again 

 the same agencies bring ill-luck and bad chance, pursue him from 

 beginning till end and thwart all his most strenuous efforts and his 

 best-founded knowledge. To control these influences and these 

 only he employs magic. 



Thus there is a clear-cut division : there is first the well- 

 known set of conditions, the natural course of growth, as well as 

 the ordinary pests and dangers to be warded off by fencing and 

 weeding. On the other hand there is the domain of the un- 

 accountable and adverse influences, as well as the great unearned 

 increment of fortunate coincidence. The first conditions are 

 coped with by knowledge and work, the second by magic. 



This line of division can also be traced in the social setting of 

 work and ritual respectively. Though the garden magician is, 

 as a rule, also the leader in practical activities, these two functions 

 are kept strictly apart. Every magical ceremony has its distinctive 

 name, its appropriate time and its place in the scheme of work, 

 and it stands out of the ordinary course of activities completely. 

 Some of them are ceremonial and have to be attended by the whole 

 community, all are public in that it is known when they are going 

 to happen and anyone can attend them. They are performed on 

 selected plots within the gardens and on a special corner of this 

 plot. Work is always tabooed on such occasions, sometimes only 

 while the ceremony lasts, sometimes for a day or two. In his 

 lay character the leader and magician directs the work, fixes the 

 dates for starting, harangues and exhorts slack or careless gardeners. 

 But the two roles never overlap or interfere : they are always clear, 

 and any native will inform you without hesitation whether the 

 man acts as magician or as leader in garden work. 



What has been said about gardens can be paralleled from any 

 one of the many other activities in which work and magic run 

 side by side without ever mixing. Thus in canoe-building empirical 

 knowledge of material, of technology, and of certain principles 

 of stability and hydrodynamics, function in company and close 

 association with magic, each yet uncontaminated by the other. 



For example, they understand perfectly well that the wider 

 the span of the outrigger the greater the stability yet the smaller 

 the resistance against strain. They can clearly explain why they 

 have to give this span a certain traditional width, measured in 



